Archive for month: August, 2015

Front squats will be taken from the ground today, you may clean your first rep, but make sure you hit below parallel for it to count. Due to the amount of pull-ups, scale appropriately using bands or rings.

For bench press today, work in pairs or triplets and use the same weight across all 3 sets. Make sure grip is such that at the bottom of the lift, your forearms are perpendicular to the ground. For the metcon, scale HSPUs to wall walks (half reps) or use a box to support your feet and do L-HSPUs. Scale double unders to an appropriate number (e.g. half reps)

Cindy was never into sports growing up,she always had her nose stuck in a book plus the 1970s did not provide a lot of options for girls. Tennis, softball, track and soccer were all the sports available to girls at the time and none of them really appealed, although she did try a couple. None stuck though as she quickly found out that they all involved running in one form or another (not her favorite thing in the world to do!). So it wasn’t until she got well into middle age that she discovered something that piqued her interest. She and her husband joined Fairmont Athletic Club in 2008 and one of the classes was this crazy workout called CrossFit. They tried it and were soon hooked. It really grabbed Cindy because it was one of the few times she could quiet her mind. (All you can focus on in CrossFit is what you are doing in the moment — very zen). In 2010 Cindy and her husband competed in the very first Master’s qualifiers for the CrossFit Games and went on to judge the competitors in Carson at the Games themselves. Competing at Regionals was an amazing experience. There were only 50 women in the world who signed up to compete and Cindy came in 29th. She hopes to get back into competing again and her secret dream is to make it back to Carson someday as an athlete, but, she suspects she’ll have to get pull ups before then!

It’s been such a wonderful experience getting my mojo back and it wouldn’t have happened at any other box or in any other sport. I’ve lost 51 pounds since May of 2014 thanks to working out at Thermal and dialing in my diet. I’ve lost 10 pounds this summer alone. (yes Vinny consistency pays off!)

It’s not just about the weight loss though — I feel like I find out a little more about myself with every WOD. I find out things I like and things I want to change and I find it unbelievably cool that I get to discover things about myself at this stage in life. Thank you Vinny, Sarah and Sam, and all the coaches, for providing me a place to grow as an athlete and as a whole person!!!

Choose your own weight for push presses. If you’d rather go heavy and make it a strength focused movement, go for it. If you’d rather keep it light so you can get it done and get a lot of rounds, great!

Once in a while we really have to push the limits of our skills. Today is a good day for that. Don’t be intimated, just look at one movement at a time and work with the coach to figure out the best way to scale for your ability. Wall walks and hand stand push-ups are great scales for handstand walks. Clean and jerks can be scaled by weight and if you can’t climb a rope without your legs, then use your legs!!

For the complex today, some of you will work from the rack while some will work from the ground. Work with a coach to determine what is best for you. During warm-up, build up to the appropriate weight for you and keep the weight the same across all sets.

Conditioning is a 2 part AMRAP with built in rest between the segments. The movements are designed to be simple so that you can execute this as a sprint workout.

Benchmark Time!! Elizabeth is one of the old school classics and everyone should take this one on! Even if you can’t RX, do the best you can and LOG YOUR TIME, this workout is a great barometer of your ability to move moderate weight quickly and at the same time crush a challenging gymnastics movement.

No strength to worry about today, we like letting benchmark WODs stand alone (as they should), if you go all out, you won’t have anything left. Since we’ll have time today, we’ll do heats with counters, so we can help motivate each other.

Strength today has 2 components and you’ll alternate between the two, most likely working with a partner. Make sure to use spotters for the bench and then move together to the one arm rows using the bench to stabilize if preferred. Keep in mind this is NOT an alternating EMOM, you can rest between movements as needed, don’t treat this as a Metcon or “superset”.

200M runs and wall balls…doesn’t look hard on paper right? We’ll consider these words, which you can apply to almost any of our daily WODs. “you don’t need a harder workout, you need to go harder in your workout.” 200M sprints and unbroken sets of wall balls will definitely get you the stimulus we’re looking for today. Some CF athletes should do this sub 10 minutes, but feel free to scale to 100M runs if needed. We want to keep the intensity high on this so scale appropriately, even to 4 rounds if needed. For the “my knee hurts” or “I can’t run crowd”, show up anyway, and modify to rowing!

We’re working on snatch form today guys, use this as an opportunity to dial in anything that is off with your snatch technique. Maybe its your footwork in your landing, maybe you’re not getting your elbows up in the second pull? Take about 20 minutes to work form and if you’re feeling good, go HEAVY!!

Conditioning is a 10 minute AMRAP, go all out! Try to string big sets of KB swings, and stay on the bar for T2B. Scale double unders to 20 reps or 60 singles if needed.

On September 19, CrossFit Thermal will be joining over 400 other gyms participating in Lift Up Autism.

What is Lift Up Autism?

Two years ago, on October 19, 2013 Josh Everett, TrainHeroic, and the more than 350 boxes in the CrossFit community rallied together in spectacular fashion to support the Autism community in a worldwide workout event called Lift Up Luke. This “competition for a cause” specifically sought to support early diagnosis and treatment of Autism, raise funds for the Autism Tree Project Foundation in San Diego, and most importantly, turn a global spotlight on the measured and severe impact of Autism on families and individuals around the world.

This year, we’re upping the ante and doubling down our efforts to take the impact of the event to another level.

The “Luke” workout is challenging but accessible. We have scaling options to accommodate athletes of all abilities and experience levels.

Our goal is to have all of our members participate in this WOD, and you can sign up here! There are 4 options you can choose from to sign up. Donations are completely voluntary, but if you sign up as a Heroic Helper, you do get a T-shirt! We hope to see you all there!